He is a true wonder...

Boys and girls,

I have a congenital defect: I like to give people the benefit of the doubt,
including Brian McLaren. That said, Maestro McLaren really, *really*
stretches the definition of incredulity; odd, since he is such a dictionary
literalist. Did anyone else notice, in the last post, this lovely
tripartite sequence of statements:

>In the previous post, I mentioned that
>the scientific method is crucially important in
>microtonality. As Aristotle points out in the Rhetoric:
>"A speech has two parts. You must state you case,
>and you must prove it. You cannot either state your
>case and omit to prove it, or prove it without
>having first stated it." This is clearly an alien
>concept to Eric Lyon and Greg Taylor: but to the
>rest of us, it's obvious.

.. a little later:

>In fact, authorities, as history shows, are usually
>*wrong.*
>Aristotle is a superb example.

.. and finally:

>So please, people, stop quoting authority figures.
>I don't give a fat rat's ass what Milton Babbitt
>or John Cage or Bach or Beethoven or the King of
>Siam or Allah or Boddhisatva says, this means
>*NOTHING* to me.

Excellent: Brian leads off his lecture with a supporting quote from Mr. A,
proceeds to later undermine Mr. A's credibility, and then admonishes others
for quoting people like Mr. A. And he is on *our* collective posteriors
about a (perceived) inability to offer reasoned and logical discourse; this
is far richer than that piece of pumpkin/apple butter pie (with real
whipped cream!) I just finished.

Sooooo, I am sorry that I've been too busy up until now, but I absolutely
will call Sonic Arts Gallery tomorrow morn and get an appointment with the
boy. I hope he gives good meeting...

Cheers,
Jon
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
Jonathan M. Szanto | Hey, 3.6 folks a day can't be wrong . . . .
Corporeal Meadows | . . . . . . . . . . see Harry in the Meadows

jszanto@adnc.com | http://www.adnc.com/web/jszanto/welcome.html
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